Hawaae Adda

Last day of our Gyne posting the girls decided to hold the entire group back to take some photos. Half of us were still taking the exam, so we waited. When for one of the clicks the girls went upstairs on the 'little slide' area as I call it, for a second the whole scenario reminded me of the airport. I had then stretched a tall arm up in the air and waved from below a pseudo-I'll see you again.

She has this love for the airport. She has an unusual craving to go and spend time there, watch the flying fish grow smaller with the accretion of sky around it, stare at people waving goodbyes.

"Where shall we go?" A random question in the house would spin it self on a Sunday.
"The airport!"
"Any one in their right mind wants to have a say?"
"Ghar ki murghi daal barabar," murmuring she would walk away.

Mostly, people leaving are her choice of crowd, yes. Coming ones are all right as long as they bring some adrenalin left overs than just stories. Love, what is this term she is obsessed with? Let's see if she can take a shot at defining it. If love was to be a bacterium it would be of an opportunist kind. You leave the door open and it'll make way some how. And you keep the locks on and it'll wait all the eternity at your door steps; we have vaccines for that purpose. It being a choice rests within your own strengths or weaknesses; immune system. But since it's not a bacterium once it's made way, chances are it's staying.

Her love for the airport is explainable as she has had many experiences with it that have allowed the love for it to make way and stay. They were regardless of her need, but important experiences. Her visits were insignificant and went unnoticed at that time and she did not know that she was registering them. They have slowly made her habitual of being associated with the place. It is generally taken as demeaning to have love be channelled through habituation and believe it or not it plays a part. The door beside the experiences was also pushed open when she had walked down to see landings in the afternoon long time ago.

A child's retina and the permanent snaps upon it evolving into a hankering stock, spelling love: A thing of beauty indeed.

Homie!

The gender fight as I have claimed was never one worthy of my concrete opinion. Mostly, because it sways circumstantially. As far as my observation about a woman goes: I am a woman, I can do somethings, I can try doing others, I can't do many, I manage most that fall within the parameters of my dominion, I am capable by the grace of Allah and then there are things that I would have thought about had I, Khudanakhuwasta, had a different theological understanding from what I do. That's it. Nothing 'understanding infinity' about it.

I stretched a rosy palm toward her with a pen lying obliquely upon it, taking which and seeing the oddness about the collection of lines that indent my lumbricals, thenar and hypothenar she said, "You have a complicated set of lines there."
"O really? Seems interesting and I would have thought about it had I shared ideas in this regard with the majority in the neighboring country on the East, since I don't Imma let it go," I chewed on a dewychewy melting it with my parotid and submandibular serous secretions while writing a random note, vandalizing an ancient, forsaken wall in the Obstetric Ward.
"No, I mean just out of curiosity!"
"Yes, I am curious but I choose not to go there, marzi hai na meri," I told her.
"You know, I blank out on people," the third person in the conversation proving to be still alive uttered.
"We all got something going on down deep, it's all right if you catch up on it thinking the current event to be unworthy of your time or thoughts, go ahead," I said.
"Yes, you loose yourself, I have noticed it many a times," person number two emphasized upon a well established fact.
"Yah?" Person number three again.
"No, you see if you know you blank out or if you take something as not normal and you do identify it about yourself then I think you have the option of rectifying it; not being able to identify is another deal," I said thinking it got a little philosophical.
"You are right."

Anyway, back to the futile gender war. Man and Woman, both being humans, come with their separate definitions. I believe, what the two of them are capable of is entirely their individual aptitude, decision, free will based upon physiology, psychology, pathology and psychopathology which are influenced by the inevitable uncertainty about events to come that often confound us when they do (read fatalism). Woman is a different creature, a pillar, a phenomenon, nevertheless a compliment to Man, and vice versa. To think we have two clinical postings (Gyne + Obs) based solely upon the functioning of Woman which means two separate books, two separate tests, two separate sets of classes, double the fun, I'd let her take this one for getting the bigger part of recognition as far as bachelors in medicine and surgery go.

A joyous heart

"Can you get me some cake, please?" I yelled to her from upstairs.
"No way-s."
"Can you get me some water?" I tried again.
"No way-s."
"Can you drink some water for me?"
"Way-s!"
"Ahahaha, you sucha haytah!"

I was cuddling up to her keeping absolutely in mind how much she hates it and to my surprise she started patting and massaging my hair.
"Um?" I had asked.
"What? You remind me of Amjad," she said honestly which explained why I had felt like an animal for a second when she was showing me love.
"O! He was a good bakra," I said.
"I miss Anmol and Anokha too!" She explained her emotions mentioning to me the he-goats we have had the recent Eid.
"Aw! You poor little girl, but there's a lesson you learn from Eid-ul-Adha na!" I said to her.
"I know."

* Couple minutes later *

"Ammi, I want a bakra right now! Abhi, bus abhi hi abhi! Bakra chaheye." I asked Maa.
"Phir behkeen?" Maa said.
"But I want a bakra, bus abhi hi abhi, foran!"

* Pause *

"Do you still want it?" Mani had asked me after a minute's awkward silence.
"No. Not any more."
"Such a freak."

Earthquake January 2011

I woke up in a state of confusion last night, straightening up in a little corner of the lounge where I had dozed off. The L.C.D showed rapidly moving pictures and before I could figure out what they were saying I heard her say something to me in a calm concerned voice.
"Bajjo, zalzala aya hai."
I sat up immediately uttering words involuntarily, "Ya Allahu, Ya Allahu. Karam Maula? OMG! Did I say my Isha?"
"I was lying down here, about to go down and got dizzy, pehli baat to meray zehan mein aae zalzala hai, phir ek minute tak chakkar ata raha..."
"Ek minute? That's a lot of time, are you sure? Was it like one, two, three till ten, like ten seconds?"
"Pata nahi, kafi dair tak, yes probably ten seconds, and I couldn't feel anything else wrong with me, so I was like dude it's an earthquake, read the Kalima."

The time on the NEWS channel read 1:45 and I recited the Kalima while recalling if I had for sure said my Isha.

"I was lying down here and then I read the time, it was 10:15 and I had thought I should get done with Isha before power failure. I got up, but did I say Isha?"
"I don't know," she answered.
"Ya, I did. After my wittar I lamented over how rapidly I had said my Maghrib. Allah maaf karay, I am a disaster." Getting distracted by the noise outside I asked her, "Night match hai aaj in logon ka?"
"Yea, I don't think they noticed."
"Yahoodi ek din ka roza Fir'aun ki maut ki wajah se hi rakhtay haina?" I resumed the musing during which I had fallen asleep.
"I think. Should I wake Maa up?"
"Ahan, do that, let her know."

Amma came out of her room and said nafil prayers. We then watched the NEWS for a while that repeatedly informed us of the intensity varying from an initial 7.4 to a 7.2.
"Ayat-ul-Kursi parho sab," Amma had said.

Nauman and Hanif constantly text-ed her. According to Nauman he was on the computer when his chair started shaking and the window vibrated vigorously. They ran downstairs knocking on the doors of neighbors. Maria had woken up because the sofa she was sleeping on started oscillating and the iron stand too. Shafiq was studying when things started to shiver and she recited the Ayat-ul-Kursi. Mamu was up at the time of the quake and told us how the sky over him is saturated with the voice of Azaan which woke his daughter up who was terrified not only because of the chaos but by some one's stereo that started booming at the end of the street right after the Azaan-s ended. He told us to recite teesra Kalima. After a couple minutes we untightened a little, thanking Allah that we were not crushed under the debris of our house that we have built with such zeal. I then got my hands on a cell phone and awakened half the world who must have cursed giving me their numbers for waking them up for no apparent reason. I then went to bed around 3:30 in the morning.

The full moon looks fierce tonight.

People

Three years from today, if I live, I'll look back at this and laugh my head off. Since I don't keep a diary I am going to scribble on my blog any way. The agitation, the restlessness, the turbulence, the instability all of which that has been destroying my cool over the past two years is now going to no longer have me huffing and puffing. The cyber dose started fading away and actuality became clear. And I would step over the fence and just when I am about to jump in the reality something invisible bounces me back. As curiosity remains the only charm about my hype, I would connect with words, uttered words that would penetrate the see through barrier to the other side. Uttered words are non material but are felt the most and they failed me because I could never gauge upon the impact they would have on others, thus I gave them the title of babblement, ridding them of their value, a terrible mistake on my part. Had I mastered how the texture of my words affected who and how, I would have been a real person, a human, as well. Way before that life had me connecting with written words or typed words rather; the curse of a net freak. Reality was always discrete but neglected standing tall separated from the monitor, thus typed letters remained unreal and anyone depending upon them made them as unreal as ever. One reason for that might be life being never so constant as is it now. It was varying so rapidly with me being at toes getting things done, forgetting to see real people around and only the unreal moving on with persistence. It's smooth now, in terms of happenings and interaction with the same lot of real people. They have their own observations of me too this time. I see a plethora of them as real walking human beings for long enough to understand them and how beautiful, diverse, tangible and easy they are. And the only thing that remains on my list is to treat them well with the best choice of uttered words that have meanings. It took me forever and just when I have decided to go at peace with them out there, my only real lot that has been a part of me in all of the real and unreal loosens its grip over my palms.

Mommy, don't leave me.
Don't leave me, Daddy.

Babblement be truncated

The cupboard under the stairs has this dank, humid, earthy smell that gets me salivating. Now, generally it's mildew and dust mites feeding on detritus that are the culprits behind the aroma but it is earthy and I can't help it! The triangular little corner is a depository and my discovery of the century happens to be the stored rice. And when we first learned about olfaction we were told about its working in complete peace with the Gastrointestinal tract which renders me stuffing a fist full of uncooked rice fused with pheromonal odor of the parasites. Yes, I have been having dreams of choking on a crushed particle of a grain of rice and dying. Don't tell my mom. Then I was hit by the thought of all these people around me lamenting over my deadness for a day or two and before you know it they would have to think real hard in order to recall something about me.

As wild and precocious at the same time the shadow that often stalks me turns out to be, if you look closely flaws will unravel themselves in an unending cascade. But the fact that one needs to run anyway is the charm about life. Run with their flawing entity. Run after something or lead the chase. And then there is the cruise of liberty and often at it I would find myself pulling on the reins around the turns and that will definitely account for being the more difficult thing to do; rightfully so because that ensures control and control is a perplexing choice of actions.

You know redemption is the sole key to alleviate myself of the self pitying necrosis my infarcted being is turning out to be for no apparent reason in this particular phase of life. Speaking of redemption, I don't mean returning back as a person to a certain point in the past but redeeming the position that my presence was once entitled, perhaps violating it and ascending higher this time. This phase of life. The one of constraint, the one of not being sure, the one of trying to find myself, the one of trying to work my surrounding, the one of turns and dead ends, the one of fearlessness, yet the one of fearing myself, the one of building, the one of finally putting the brain to practical quests, the one of a fundamental kind, the one that is distinguished. Now, let's blame the pacing cars over the highway or the black cat that has suddenly found our porch to be a comfy dwelling to spend life.

No Sana, don't lose it.
Quit with the clutter jaan.
Shhhhh!
Come on!
Go easy.
Shabash.
It's okay.
Good girl.

The End.

Panchi bawara chaand se preet lagaye

Something about the environment has led me to wrap myself in my blanket and scribble, and the K.E.S.C has nothing to do with it. One thing I would readily claim to adore about winter is how under its influence the ceiling fans pause in the land of invisibility. Love the silence. If I listen harder and if the ticking stops, someone is audibly breathing in the next room. The moon has been neglected and tonight it only compelled me because of the chaandni that falls in my terrace resembling the chodween. My love for the moon is strange and I remain incapable of coming up with a reason for such an extreme interest that estranges me from others for they would never be pleased with the knowledge I have about the heavenly body. The devotion of my thoughts to it in their own odd way survives without an explanation. Perhaps it's the lack of scientific enthusiasm and only the curiosity beyond that drives me to think about it, think differently about it.

The Show

My world of ideas has me and the playing around surroundings in the most extravagant air that should be blatantly declared as terrible in taste, an idiosyncrasy. The baroque style architecture, the attire only a mixture of everything I have ever come across, the antiquity and me. The scene after another opens before me almost like I am stuck in a giant, voluminous gut, and peristalsis wants me going forward.

Except this time I thought I'd make a royal entrance. I put on my ornamented red gown, stretched my neck high and walked tall down the abstract stair case. My heart continues to count the beats down, resting calmly within the florid rib cage that constitutes the pretending to be ambrosial presence of mine.

"You are just like anyone else I know," she had said to me.
"Why, are you trying to instigate me?" I questioned honestly.
"Are you just going to do that, like so many ordinary people?"
"I am going to pay no attention to you."
"You mustn't emphasize upon a fact like this, you never have paid attention to what I say."

I carefully walked down the illustrious stairs to a void hall, clutching on tickets to an overture I, myself, am a conductor of. Although, I don't remember being skilled in such a dimension. One of the characteristic features of being human, again, is not knowing what lies ahead of you. I can predict. I can even calculate, but I can't guarantee. I can't prove anything.

"No ma'am, you'll be all the way up in the balcony, you'll be listening," the man in a fancy hat with a cartwheel ruff around his neck told me.
"It's my show," I said with ambiguity.
"It is and you'll be in the audience."

This turned out to be the biggest confusion I have lived so far, the notion of being the conductor to the overture of my opera or even the singer. I took my seat like thousands of people did in the audience. I waited for the conductor to start and clapped when he did. I am watching and should intervene since it is my show, but can I? Will I? I don't know.

Let me enjoy my show!
*The view is great*

For Life

This last interval of the day without electricity is turning out to be the most unbearable one. As always I would have a list of things to accomplish before sunshine and life ceases with me squashed against the dark like a dead bug on a glass window. Pressing clothes was never an exciting thought but I'd like my O.T dress to enjoy such a luxury. Plus, now that I am finally in a routine I start dozing off with a delayed Isha half the time. I have missed school two days in a row without a substantial reason. I have been extra nice to people, lately.

If I have been ugly to you, it's the right time to approach me for some sugar.

I was just teasing Saria about how she wastes days and days doing nothing but lying at one spot.
"Har waqt leti kyun rehti ho, koi kaam karo, be active," Amma had reprimanded.
"Mom, it's my passion!" Saria had replied satisfactorily.
"What? Hahahaha!" It was the funniest thing I had heard in the longest time.

So, the last time they couldn't find anything to tease someone about, they had conjured figments of odd actions associated to one another and would go about making fun of each other.
"Daniyal tum raat mein bol rahay thay kuch, tumhain kiya khuwab aya tha?" Yumna had questioned him in jest.
"Mujhay? Koi bhi khuwab nahi aya tha, kiya bola mainay?" Daniyal investigated.
"Tum uth kay beth ga-ay or kehnay lagay DUM GHUTKON, DUM GHUTKON!" Saria informed him.
"Really?"
"Why are you so surprised, you said it."

Okay, so all of us have had some really embarrassing moments associated with us that have been a must mention on the list of every relative any time you see them. I get the teasing aspect of it, I would like to pick on a family member for a while, as well, but it has been years, come on! It was my Comprehensive Exam for Pakistan Studies when I stepped out of the gates of P.C into the rain. Now, Pakistan Studies is all about writing, getting extra copies, filling pages, so nothing else pops in your head but bulk and bulk of answers that you have photocopied in your brain. It had only occurred to me after standing in the rain for a minute how badly I needed to use the bathroom. Right at that instant I was jabbed by the sight of a Nissan Patrol filled with faces I love coming to a halt right in front of me.

"What the?"
"Come on Bajjo, let's go!"
"What the? Where are we going?"
"Emergency picnic!"
"Yeaaaaaahhhh!!!!"
"Um, okay."

I gulped and hopped inside the overcrowded Patroller, resisting my issues. It was an awesome ride, had half of my brain not consoling my bladder issues it would have been an enjoyable one, as well. Then, I had had it and had made an abrupt announcement that I needed to go. Now, it's such an ordinary happening of one's life, nothing dramatic about it and if I were them I would have understood that the girl just walked out of an exam, but NO!

All right, it wasn't so ordinary after all since the entire emergency picnic turned out to be a hunt for a sanctuary for my emergency.

God bless the McDonald's walay!

Suicidal

If I don't like a known response to an action of mine, I generally abstain from the action in the first place. But if I keep instigating the uncontrolled reaction, chances are I like it or I am addicted to it. And if such an action has lethal consequences, technically I am up for a suicide.

adam bezaar

Insomnia seems to have vaccinated itself against me. I sleep at nights, sleep like a baby. I dream now, dream something new every night. Good thing about dreams is that you can force them to be forgotten. And the peculiarity about so many walls that had stood with me, so many swings that had been pushed with me, so many trees that I had recognized and so many library cards that I had lost is that they move on with me as imprints and are never forgotten. And because they never cease to haunt the future they keep the past as an intrinsic part of my present. Along with them walk so many faded shadows. Shadows because the obstructions in the pathway of light themselves have always transformed into something translucently unapproachable in the future. So, my conversations remain without an end. In fact, when have I ever tried ending them or needed a fresh start for their resumption? Each conversation that can invade years.

I crouched on the carpet in the living room where wooden chairs rested with their legs firmly placed on the ground under the glass-top waiting for a meal to be served. The marbled wall looked determined in maintaining its poise while my gaze burgeoned past the forest under the dining table. The frowning winter afternoon gave a melancholic pretense of an ancient library to the space. I lifted my cringed self to spread over the table. My hair fell upon it like crooked fingers of a corpse.

Ali rushed by, I followed him with my eyes and because inflicting distraction is the distinction about him, he came back and poured water on the table. Creeks grew out of the splash and made their way toward me. The ends of my hair first drank from them and then submerged willingly. The pale fingers then inflated with individual ends of my drenched hair resembling a Porcupine Puffer, reminding me of all the conversations that I am still in and how sharp their ends have become over the time.

The sky chokes on patakhay because a year has ended.